Innovative choreographer refuses to see limits

Sunday

Mar 29, 2009 at 12:01 AMMar 29, 2009 at 11:03 AM

The first big exhibition of works by vanguard American choreographer William Forsythe most likely will draw superlatives about its part-dance, part-visual-art, part-educational pieces -- and especially about a Web project being launched at the same time as the Wexner Center for the Arts show.

The first big exhibition of works by vanguard American choreographer William Forsythe most likely will draw superlatives about its part-dance, part-visual-art, part-educational pieces -- and especially about a Web project being launched at the same time as the Wexner Center for the Arts show.

Says Forsythe about the project: "The concept is really simple: We're making the invisible visible."

New York critic and curator Louise Neri, who has followed Forsythe's work for 20 years, adds high praise. She says that Forsythe, winner of the 2002 Wexner Prize, has revolutionized classical ballet and become the greatest innovator in the field since George Balanchine.

Then shouldn't his work be presented onstage rather than online or in gallery space?

Not really, Neri said.

"He's one of those people -- like many philosophers and artists before him -- who has many parallel interests."

He is someone who understands that "choreography is a language that can encompass much more than formal dance presentation," she said.

"I think this is something that has preoccupied him since his very earliest choreographies."

Indeed, the exhibition "William Forsythe: Transfigurations" will feature a hybrid work, Monster Partitur, which includes performances several times a day by dancer Alessio Silvestrin as well as a sculptural piece that will be on view throughout the exhibition.

Because that work "is stretching the boundaries of what performance means," it is better-suited for a gallery than a stage, said Chuck Helm, the exhibition's curator and the Wexner Center's director of performing arts.

Other works in the exhibition similarly stretch boundaries, all the while remaining grounded in Forsythe's skills in choreography.

In the video installation City of Abstracts, the images of gallery visitors are projected onto a large screen, somewhat like a fun-house mirror.

As viewers see their bodies stretch and spiral on-screen, they are lured into moving in a kind of modern dance.

In the videos Solo and Antipodes I / II, two adjacent video screens present Forsythe dancing and moving about a room, sometimes seeming to defy gravity.

In the video Suspense, Forsythe dances -- or rather, interacts -- with a series of ropes.

In the video Thematic Variations on One Flat Thing, reproduced, Forsythe and filmmaker Thierry de Mey show, from multiple perspectives, the classical choreography of Forsythe's tour de force stage work One Flat Thing, reproduced.

Finally, and perhaps most important, the exhibition will have on display the Web project Synchronous Objects for One Flat Thing, reproduced, which was developed by Forsythe in collaboration with Ohio State University's Department of Dance and Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design.

By applying animation and graphics to the swirling, diving dancers in the piece, the site shows "how the action is organizing itself," Forsythe said.

"We could never explain this until the advent of these technologies. Finally, dance is able to speak on its own terms."

The wide-ranging possibilities of the project become apparent when visitors, with a mouse click, remove the dancers and see only the swirls and patterns in action.

The moving three-dimensional patterns can also be used in making models of systems such as architecture, design, geography, landscape or weather, Forsythe said.

Material related to the development of Synchronous Objects will also be on view in the exhibition, as will Forsythe's CD-ROM project Improvisation Technologies. The CD-ROM, which has been "enormously influential on the international dance community," Neri said, can be seen as an earlier version of the Web project.

"The really important thing about these technological projects is that they relate to a certain kind of democratizing of information," Neri said.

"The idea that this will be freely available on the Web, and not just by owning a CD-ROM . . . it could be one of those paradigmatic tools."

tferan@dispatch.com

• "William Forsythe: Transfigurations" will open Thursday and continue through July 26 in the Wexner Center for the Arts, 1871 N. High St. • Also on view: the art exhibits "Catch Air: Robin Rhode" and "Coop Himmelb(l)au: Beyond the Blue," the latter featuring architectural models. • Gallery hours: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Sundays; 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays. Admission: $5, or free for Wexner Center members, students and those 18 and younger; free from 4 to 8 p.m. Thursdays and the first Sunday of the month. • An opening party for all three exhibitions will take place from 5 to 8 p.m. Wednesday. • The symposium "William Forsythe: Choreographic Objects" will be presented from 3 to 5 p.m. Wednesday in the film/video theater. • For performance times, call 614-292-3535 or visit www.wexarts.org.

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